Real Life Real Love
by Zuziefluzie
Summary: Luke and Reid struggle over the new wing.  And none of those horrible things happened in Sept.  Have never tried this before.  Please bare with me and I'll try to make the chapters longer and more detailed.
1. Chapter 1

Real Life/Real Love

"_Dr. Oliver, Dr. Oliver_..."

Luke caught up to the office door just after the Doctor had stormed throught it.

_"Seriously_," Luke said closing the door behind him. _"Do you think you could have been any more of an ass, Reid?"_

_"Look Mr. Snyder"_. Reid threw his agenda and notes down on his desk.

Great Luke thought, we're in full Dr. personna now, as he caught Reid's pen before it bounced off the desk.

_" No way am I going to let some pencil pushing dweeb__** tell me**__ how to make decisions regarding patient care._

_It ain't going to happen. Case closed!"_

Luke sighed before he said, _"Reid, come on, we've gone over this. He's not trying to tell you how to run the Neuro Wing._

_The guy's just here to run a cost/care profile, in case there are things we are overlooking."_

_"Hhmp, so you say..." _Reid sat down at the desk and opened one of his case files; like he thought ignoring Luke would make

him go away.

Between Henry's donation and Luke's Foundation, the new Snyder Pavillion was going to be state of the art. There is no way

it couldn't be with Reid at the helm. But, Luke also knew he had to keep an eye on costs. In this economy people weren't

being as generous as they had been. Truthfully, Luke knew a lot of them couldn't afford to be. Even he had to keep in mind

that his Foundation wasn't a bottomless pit. He didn't want to tap into his principle unless he absolutely had to.

_"Look" _ Luke said, trying to sound patient _"you know fund raising's been slow"_

Reid just grunted as he stood up.

_"And no offense here, Doctor, but your attitude isn't doing much to endear you to our donors."_

_"Yeah, well most of them are morons, who can't tell the difference between their brains and their asses!" _Reid shot back as

he snatched his lab coat off the hanger.

_"You know, not everyone can be as highly evolved as the__** 'Great Doctor Reid Oliver'**_ Luke said, his voice rising in irritation.

_And, unless you have a secret fortune stashed somewhere, that I'm unaware of, to fill in our funding gap... _

_We need our donors more than they need us"_

_"I'm tired of this arguement Mr. Snyder!" _Reid grabbed his stethiscope._"I have rounds." _he said as he stormed out the door.

_"I'm sure you are Dr. Oliver, I'm sure you are. We only have it every other day." _ Luke called after the closing door.

OMG, Luke thought, is there anyone in the world who could be more frustrating?

Brillant Neuro Surgeon - check.

Biggest pain in the ass I've ever had to deal with - double check.

The love of my life - triple check.

Seriously.

Luke smiled as he left Reid's office. God, he thought to himself, I wouldn't want to be one of "the great Doctor's"

interns on rounds today...


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Am not sure this chapter will end up any longer than Chapter 1. Somehow for now it **

**seems to be flowing short and sweet.**

**I apologize for spelling and/or grammar. Tried using spell check when I uploaded, but my **

**computer skills are even more challenged than my spelling... which also explains the **

**weird spacing! Please review.**

Chapter 2: Monday

Reid stormed from his office down the hall to the Exit sign and hit the stairs going down.

_"God, how I hate Mondays"_ he swore under his breath.

Luke knows this nickle and dime administrative stuff drives me straight up a tree. Why does

he insist I attend these damn meetings. And, why do they always have to be at 8 a.m. on

Monday mornings! Some day he knew, when he became Chief of Staff, he'd have to deal with

all of it. But, he was hoping he could fence it off to a really good administrative assistant. Or,

better still, get Dougie Hughes to take over that part of the job. It might work...

Reid hit the 1st floor exit from the stairwell and headed to the Coffee Kiosk in the main lobby.

He knew he needed a double espresso, 1 sugar, and a twist of lemon. All he could think is

the Barris-ta better not be perky today. That'll just send me straight over the edge. What is it with

people in the Midwest that they need to be so damn polite? In Boston people were rude all the

time and nobody thought a thing about it. Here in "Oakhell" everyone insisted on saying " good

morning" and expected a "please" and "thank you" for every request. Having grown up in the

'rude' world of the Big City all this 'niceness' made him feel like he'd dropped in some "Leave It

To Beaver" episode on Retro-T.V.

Reid looked up and realized that, Thank God, Pearl was manning 'the coffee forte' today. Pearl

had been a fixture at Memorial Hospital since before Bob Hughes had even thought about going to

Med School. She'd started out washing dishes in the Cafeteria and ended up running the place.

Over the years she'd become the hospital's very own "lunch lady" and everyone adored her,

from the Chief of Staff, down to the lowliest intern. She was _way_ past retirement, but she just

didn't think the hospital could make it without her. So, she manned the register at the Coffee

Kiosk a couple of days a week. Pearl knew it was the best spot in the hospital to keep an

eye on things. Everybody stopped to talk and nothing got past her.

It hadn't taken Dr. Oliver long to realize she was the one person at Memorial, you shouldn't piss

off.

_"I know - don't even say it Dr. Reid, I've already heard all about how you went off in that _

_meeting! Those suits don't know the first thing about running a hospital. All they care_

_about is the linen count and how many boxes of plastic gloves have going missing from_

_the supplies."_

Reid kind of smiled at Pearl's carring on.

_"I don't blame you for being ticked off. And, I don't know what Luke Snyder thought he was_

_doing bringing those men here. We all know he couldn't have done any better than hiring you!_

_But, you know Dr. Reid, he's still a young man and he doesn't know enough to trust his own instincts._

_"Besides" _Pearl lowered her voice _" You and I both know if something were to go wrong_, _The Hospital_

_Board might think it had something to do with the two of you being together."_

_"Better off just biting you tongue and going along with it."_

Reid thought he might have actually blushed. He hadn't said a word the whole time Pearl

had been talking to him. He didn't need to. She'd gotten her point across.

He handed her $7.50 for the coffee plus tip and said,

_"Thank you Miss Pearl"_

_"You're welcome Dr. Reid. Don't be to hard on those interns now."_

Reid took the stairs back up to the 3rd floor and thought, those interns' don't know how lucky

they are.

Well, maybe.

Not really.

It was still Monday...

The Great Doctor chuckled, before he opened the door and met them with a scowl.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 : Luke

It was the perfect late October day in Oakdale. The leaves were just past their peak and beginning to migrate to the ground. There was a chill in the morning air, but you knew the late afternoon sun would still be warm. It was the kind of day to start out with a sweater, strip down to a T-shirt, only to don the sweater again once the sun went down.

Luke took a deep breath as he left the hospital. It was a brisk 5 blocks to his office and he figured it couldn't hurt to clear his head. As young as he was, Luke had learned to compartmentalize his life. There were his responsibilities running Grimaldi Shipping, his personal foundation, the Memorial Hospital Board, and now The Snyder Pavilion. Luke knew people were watching him. He was a 23 year old college drop out in charge of more than most 50 year old MBA's'. He knew people doubted he could handle it all. Particularly now, since his personal life had crossed over into his professional life.

Bob Hughes had warned Luke and Reid that the scrutiny they'd be under would be intense and not everyone would be accepting of their relationship. They had tried to stay under the radar, but once Reid had saved Chris Hughes' life, by hijacking that heart from Bay City - under the radar pretty much flew out the window. And, anyone who had been left in doubt, couldn't say that, after witnessing Luke and Dr. Oliver's passionate embrace, not to long after Reid hand delivered the cooler with the heart to Dr. Dixon. Which, was also why Luke had been so frustrated with Reid this morning. When you live your life 'out loud' the reverberations always seemed to spread out, just like the ripples when Luke skipped stones in Snyder Pond...

If only Luke could chuck it all and go play hookie at the farm. People always talk about finding a touchstone to the essence of "who they are". All Luke knew was that the best part of growing up "Luke Snyder" had always been The Farm. And, Fall had always been his favorite season, because it was always the busiest.

First came the mowing. It amused Luke when his friends commented on the 'giant rolls' of hay sitting in the fields. In their defense, he realized most of them had only seen hay in bales stacked up like building blocks at the local Pumpkin Patch. You had to have grown up around a farm to realize all the steps between the growing, mowing, and the decorative Scarecrow your neighbors put out for Halloween.

And, there were the orchards. Every spring the apple trees would bud in deep pink and then fade into a profusion of blooms of glorious white. To the casual observer it was breathtaking, but to those who knew, it was a roller coaster ride, with Mother Nature in control. Did it warm up to fast in March? Are we going to have a late frost in April? How much rain is too much rain in the spring? All the people who trekked out to the country in the fall, so that they could say that they had " hand picked their apple pie", didn't have a clue.

But, Luke wouldn't have traded it for the world. This was the time of year Grandma Emma's kitchen always smelled like heaven. Cinnamon, cloves, ginger and allspice; she was busy baking pies and cobblers to freeze for the winter. Pickling the last of the green tomatoes from the garden and gathering persimmons to make those cookies Reid could never get enough of. But, to Luke's mind the best was always making Crab Apple Jelly. For most of the world, crab apple trees had become ornamental, but in the mid-west, you could still harvest the fruit and make the most amazing jelly. Grandma Emma insisted that they do it all the "old fashioned" way; boiling the fruit, running it through the food mill, straining the juice, and adding a cup of sugar for each cup of juice. Bring it all back to a boil and pour it into the jelly jars, but only after they had been sterilized and a metal teaspoon placed in them, so the glass wouldn't break from the hot liquid. Crab apples had enough pectin so you didn't need to add any to make the jelly set. You just needed to cover the top with paraffin and then put the lid on after the wax had hardened. Every jar carried the label "Made for You by Emma Snyder" and every one was lovingly received by Emma's fans and relatives.

Who knew that making jelly could be so magical? But that was the perfect part of his childhood. The memories he called on for comfort. The memories he always wished he could "re-live". The ones that made him feel normal... Normal, what was normal? Certainly, not the life he'd grown up with. Luke Snyder considered himself "the poster boy" for dysfunctional families. His mother, Lily, and father, Holden, couldn't decide whether they could live with or without each other. It was like growing up with the Push-Me-Pull-Me from Dr. Dolittle. And, that didn't even take into account his "real" father Damien, which was an entirely different story in itself.

Needless to say, living his own life hadn't been any less dramatic. That's the thing about dysfunction, it tends to be genetic. Luke was a recovering alcoholic. He had learned/lived all the jargon. Addiction, dependency, co-dependency. Mix all that up with coming to terms with your sexuality and then falling in love with some one who wasn't really emotionally available. It was a f-d up mess. Luke and Noah's relationship had been like a bad gay version of the Lily/Holden story. Which is probably why to Luke it had seemed so normal. Noah had pushed him away so many times and like the proverbial bad penny, Luke just came back for more... If I jump higher, try harder, I just know you'll love me as much as I love you. For Luke and Noah it had all gone horribly wrong with Noah's accident, which of course Noah held Luke responsible for, and Luke willingly took the blame.

For Luke, blackmailing Dr. Oliver to come to Oakdale, and restore Noah's sight, was just one more hoop he needed to jump through to prove his undying love. It was his fault, so he would go to the ends of the earth to make sure that Noah could see again. In that way Luke was a lot like his mother Lily. Under her domineering mother, Lucinda, Lily knew she wasn't good enough, and had spent most of her life trying to win her mother's approval, and hence hopefully her love. Like a hamster on a wheel, you knew you were going in circles, but you couldn't get off, because then that meant you had failed.

And then, just when things had seemed most out of control, Luke's world had turned, without his even knowing it. Who would have thought some pampas ass neuro surgeon would be the one to push Luke Snyder's world back on it's axis and help him find his center of gravity. Which is why, as he opened the door to Grimaldi Shipping, Luke knew he wouldn't be playing hookie today...

There were too many things to do...

To many people to see...

And Luke realized he was loving every minute of it.

Suddenly, Luke Snyder's life had become full of purpose.

**A/N OK, who knows about this chapter. It's been three weeks and I've rewritten it three times. Tonight, with the help of a few glasses of wine, I sat down and just pulled bits and pieces together from all these hand written pages. There isn't any dialog, just stream of conscience thru Luke's mind. Forgive my foray into the jelly making, but I use to help my grandfather make his... Please review!**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Reid

The four interns Reid was leading through rounds today, clustered at the third floor nurses' station, like wall flowers at their first homecoming dance. Truthfully, to the doctor's jaded eyes, most of them didn't look old enough to be attending a high school senior prom, much less making "life and death" decisions, so to speak.

_Is that how young he had looked when he started rotations?_

When the interns heard the Doctor clear his throat, they automatically flinched, and turned to face him, clip boards in hand. To Reid they looked like deer caught in headlights. Eyes big as saucers, frozen, just waiting for one of them to run, so the rest could follow... It amused him.

Actually, what amused/ horrified him more, was that living in "Oakhell" and hanging out with Luke, he had seen deer "spotlighted" in the fields out at the farm. It was on one of Reid's first 'official' visits out to meet Luke's family. Holden insisted that he take Reid for a spin around in one of the old jeeps. That so called spin, had ended up being much more like Gilligan's infamous "three hour tour". By the time they came back, Reid had felt like every bone in his body had been jarred loose. Except his jaw, since he'd kept his teeth clenched the whole time, afraid that he'd bite through his tongue if he didn't. One of the things Luke and his father had done was shine a police style spotlight after dark to see how many deer they could 'catch'.

_So much fun, so little time..._

Dr. Reid Oliver, who's only experience with nature had been his Uncle Angus dragging him through the park to play chess. 'Nature' for Reid had been homeless people rummaging through the trash cans. He remembered the first time he had seen some one 'dumpster dive'. He was seven years old and it had scared him.

_Why would anyone go through a trash can?_

Then he had seen an old man take out part of a hamburger some one had tossed away and finish it off like it was a steak dinner. Reid had been barely able to eat for a week; every time he looked at food it just made him want to throw up. His parents thought he had picked up a bug from school. And the really scary part, was growing up in a big city, just how use to those kind of things you became. That memory, and the hundreds like it, had become just one of the callouses on Reid Oliver's soul. It's funny how you can ignore those parts of your life until something/ some one takes you out of your 'comfort zone'. Reid had always lived in large metropolitan areas; New York, Boston, and Dallas. It was crowded and chaotic, and nobody really gave a shit who or what you were. You came, you went, you were anonymous.

_Of course, I am the best in my field, which hardly makes me anonymous..._

_"Gotta love that humility Dr. Oliver" _Reid could hear Luke saying in the back of his mind.

But then, when a 'tornado', named Luke Snyder, had dropped the esteemed doctor in the middle of no where; Reid Oliver had definitely landed outside his 'comfort zone'. Twilight Zone would be a better description. "Oakhell", as Reid still insisted on referring to his new home., was the small town to end all small towns. Although, it did have over 100,000 people living in the area - Reid swore that was a fictitious number.

_There can't possibly be more than 349 people living in this place. And, I'll bet 306 of them are Snyders..._

_How in the hell can a man, who's claustrophobic, _

_hates being confined, _

_suddenly find himself not only at home,_

_but opening up,_

_in a snow globe sized world?_

Just thinking about it all, was enough to make Reid shudder. And, if he was truthful, probably the only part of his old life he missed was that it had been on auto-pilot. It certainly wasn't that way now. Which brought him back to the task at hand.

_"I haven't got all day ladies and gentlemen. Believe me the interest rate on your student loans is compounding while we stand here. Shall we begin? Dr. Brinker you can start us off."_

**A/N This chapter has been lurking for a while, but it did surprise me where it went. Luke came with background. It's not as easy to flesh out Reid. I'm trying to find his motivations. Please review.**


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